01. Maintenance & safety measures for the Metropolitan Expressway
Maintenance of the Metropolitan Expressway
We strive to give the customers a safe driving experience on the Metropolitan Expressway by undertaking detailed "inspections", "repair and reinforcement" of damaged parts, "cleaning" of road surface and road facilities, "emergency response" to road surface damage and fallen objects, and "snow and ice countermeasures" in winter.
Inspection
In order to tackle problems before the structure becomes damaged or decrepit, we focus on conducting daily inspections such as taking patrols on the road to check the road visually and with other senses, and also inspect structures such as the overhead structures and tunnels by using aerial work platforms or temporary scaffoldings.
Expressway patrol inspection
Walking inspection under the overhead structures
Close inspection of overhead structures using aerial work platform
Close inspection by using temporary scaffolding
Close inspection inside tunnel by using aerial work platform
Walking inspection on the expressway
Repair and reinforcement
Various repairs and reinforcements are essential to maintain the road facilities. We not only repair the damage found during inspections, but also undertake reinforcement work to maintain the structure. When undertaking these works we take due care that commuting is not hampered by ensuring measures such as performing the work at night when the traffic is low.
In repair works under long-term lane closures, we have been working towards eliminating joints to reduce the number of joints on the road surface in order to improve durability and driving comfort.
Measures to prevent noise barrier from falling
Measures to prevent noise barrier from falling by installing wire ropes
In centralized construction, we are implementing no-joint construction to reduce the number of joints on the road surface in order to improve durability and improve comfort for running.
Measures to prevent fatigue damage
Steel structures in harsh conditions such as increased traffic volume of large size vehicles are prone to fatigue damage. We are actively working on the measures to prevent fatigue damage of steel structures on the Metropolitan Expressway, adopting visual inspection and non-destructive inspection to discover and repair problems before the structure collapses completely. We ensure the safety of the Metropolitan Expressway.
Cleaning
We clean the road surfaces and road facilities to improve driving safety and convenience. Several thousand tons of garbage and soil are collected every year. Even one empty can left on the road can cause serious accidents. Therefore, all roads are cleaned. We also clean up facilities and equipment like tunnels and parking areas.
Cleaning of the tunnel wall Cleaning of road surface
Emergency response
We operate on a 24-hour system for emergency situations such as road surface damage found in routine checks, facility damage due to traffic accidents, and natural disasters.
Emergency response
Snow and ice countermeasures
In order to ensure safe traffic in winter, the period between December 1 and March 31 has been allocated for undertaking snow and ice countermeasures. In order to prevent accidents caused by freezing of road surface, deicer is scattered as needed. In addition, we remove snow on the road to prevent traffic closures.
Scattering of deicer
Efficient maintenance by i-DREAMs®
We utilize the state-of-the-art smart infrastructure system "i-DREAMs®" to implement advanced and efficient maintenance management. "i-DREAMs®" aims to estimate the deterioration within structures by utilizing a damage estimation AI engine, and to automatically detect repair and reinforcement candidates according to the degree of damage.
